“The revelation that Apple paid just $36 million tax on $7.11 billion worth of profits funnelled through an Irish company sounds like old news and the Government has done its best to characterise it as such over the past few days,” John McManus opines for The Irish Times. “It is however much more than old news. The additional detail that is contained in the documents obtained by this newspaper challenge the narrative at the heart of the rearguard action fought by the Government since the news of Apple’s extraordinary efficient tax planning surfaced last year.”
“The Irish position has consistently been that while our rate is very low, it is fixed by statute and is very transparent. Other countries might have higher rates, they argued, but their effective rates in many cases were even lower than the Irish one becuase of various reliefs and concessions. Various studies have been produced over the years to back up this assertion,” McManus writes. “What Apple said last year directly contradicted this. If what they told the US senate was correct then the Irish Government had been less than truthful and you could enter into arrangements with the Irish authorities to achieve an even lower effective rate than 12.5 per cent.”
“Apple have never withdrawn this assertion, but at the same time they have stood back and let the Government kick up as much dust as they can around the issue. The counter narrative advanced by the Government was that there is no special deal but Apple instead availed of a loophole in Irish law that allowed companies to be Irish registered but not Irish domicile,” McManus writes. “This quirk of Irish tax law opened the door to low tax heaven we were told. The loophole was closed in the Budget and the Government seems to have got the “no special deals” narrative back on track. Until last week that was.”
Read more in the full article here.
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It must absolutely be killing the socialists in Europe not to be able to rape and pillage Apple and take 96% of all of its money to play with like monopoly money. My heart goes out to them.
MDN, please find a way to filter this trash out.
Oh no way, it impedes on free speech and as she’s (or he?) is posting irrelevant, redundant messages she’s (or he) is showing what a patriotic American she/he is.
Just like the “will work for food” cardboard sign crowd. Wouldn’t want to curtail their constitutional rights by removing them from a crowded intersection, would we?
SPAM! REMOVE PLEASE! THANK YOU!
Ok, if Ireland doesn’t want the $36 million in tax money for doing nothing plus the $7.11 billion for their banks to use to give loans to stimulate their economy then I am sure some other country will be willing to suffer the tragedy that Ireland is suffering through at this time. Ireland can replace the $7.11 billion with some government stimulus money followed by raised taxes to pay for it. Go for it Ireland! America has taken that deal so it must be the better way to go. A tax holiday or just print up more paper money. Lets print another trillion and maybe send some to the banks in Ireland to help them through this.
I never have understood why people don”t understand the fact that businesses do not pay taxes. Taxes and the cost of regulations forced on business are passed on to consumers as a cost of doing business. For every dollar of these cost, an additional handling charge is included.
This has nothing to do with Apple being dishonest or letting Ireland kick up some dust. Ireland found a need from international business and created a system to get the tax business. This is NOT a loophole that Apple found. It’s Standard Operating Procedure for multi-billion dollar international companies.
When Ireland was in the deepest financial do-do the Germans tried to get the Irish tax dodgers back door for Europe closed. However just like Amazon uses Luxemburg and Starbucks uses Holland, the Corporates will continue to dodge paying tax unless the Euro politicians manage to grow a pair.